You might think the last four panels of this comic are insignificant. You may not have been wondering why Elliot's family wasn't somehow involved with this overall seen. Whether you were conscious of that being an issue or not, however, you were affected by it.

As soon as Elliot made it to Tedd's basement, I started having writer's block with scripting this storyline. As one might have guessed by now, a huge part of it was the simple fact that it made sense to get in contact with both Ellen and Elliot's parents.

Several moments at different parts of the scene were written in an effort to quickly address this plot hole and move on with life, but each one just made more plot holes. It would have been possible to not create any plot holes, but the trade off would have been huge speed bumps and further complication of the scene.

Frankly, I like this outcome. Contact wasn't made because people made assumptions. Given that error due to conclusion jumping is a running theme in EGS, it's an appropriate explanation.